


The Pilotlight

by calculatingMinutiae



Category: Homestuck
Genre: A1 Session, Angst, Beforus (Homestuck), Beforus Culling (Homestuck), Body Horror, Canon-Typical Profanity, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Animal Death, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Major Character Undeath, Personal Growth, Pre-Accident Mituna Captor, SGRUB, Sibling Rivalry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2020-08-20 06:50:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20223601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calculatingMinutiae/pseuds/calculatingMinutiae
Summary: Pilotlight (n) -1. A small flame kept burning continuously [...] to relight the main gas burners whenever necessary or desired.2. an electric lamp, used in association with a control, which by means of position or color indicates the functioning of the control(per Random House Unabridged Dictionary)These are the thoughts and memories surrounding one (1) Mituna Captor, the trials and turbulence of the A1 SGRUB session, and how to move on.





	1. Discovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nobody has seen height nor hair of Mituna Captor in [????], which is, frankly, distasteful even for his standard. There is only one brave spelunker willing to fish him out from what the team at large would (had they not been preoccupied with maiming each other over The Tea) dismiss as a few-perigee-long depression nap. The group dynamic is missing its literal spark, and, hey, maybe finding it will make Latula smile again. Or not.
> 
> Probably not.
> 
> Tell me, Captor, we're still friends, right?

You are beginning to regret your life choices. Mostly, you ponder as you sink nearly shin-deep into slowly fermenting brain, you lament your audacious decision to exist.

Not a soul has seen height nor hair of Mituna Captor for weeks, which is concerning considering that he's seldom let you _forget_ about him before. The four sweeps you've known him have felt like a neon-coated, caffeine-laced retro fever dream, and the stark absence of that unabashed presence, that sheer _bravado_ from someone so contemptible is tangible. You.

You don't miss him. Not really. You may have, once, but the long nights of your friendship passed as you grew up on diverging paths, as his unwavering confidence in his abilities (outwardly; you were privileged with the knowledge that his "natural psychic talent" came from practicing with his psi until odd hours of the morning in order to make his anxieties and excess energy recede until he could sleep) eroded at your patience, until his unrepentant criticism of your studies and etiquette (you are most certainly not a "TToTTal fuckiin bulgewrench hiigh off [y9ur] own ego iif you TThiink you're TThe only guy people are giiviin' 2hiiTT TTwo for b2 rea2on2," nor any variation thereof, _thank you very much_) became so great (_why does she have to like him so much can't she see he won't treat her well, not like you can, he can't even treat himself well_) that you drifted apart. You haven't spoken in at least two perigees, and even then the last two sweeps have only included game-related correspondence. Even if you find him irritating, even if his "prophecies" and grim predictions are clearly nonsensical and demoralizing, you must admit his abilities are valuable to the team. You are aware he must know that all twelve of you will be at a great disadvantage should any of his several, several deaths stick.

So how dare he? Drag you out here? (_#unsanitary, #b9dy h9rr9r, #w9uld it kill you t9 have a deep pers9nal quest that includes air c9nditi9ning?_)

Except he hasn't actually dragged you out here at all. His absence has started to concern your mutual friend (his _datemate_, somehow) to the point of anxious episodes, which you should have known he'd cause sooner or later. Selfish as he can be, you'd almost thought she meant more to him than this, leaving her high and dry in the metaphorical torrent of suspended ambivalence. He could well be fine, could well not. She has no way to know. Neither do you, but you foolishly volunteered to find out. You hadn't exactly thought about the consequences of reconciling, let alone explaining to her, what it is you really find.

Brains. Fire. Case closed. You knew that going in, of course, as did she, but the name of this planet seemed significantly more superficial before you had to smell it.

The air carries the caramelized odor of constant decay, beyond the blood of your own ironically-clad planet and into the territory of viscera you are entirely certain that no soul should ever actually witness outside of a morgue. The smog only makes it worse. Each sweltering, ragged breath is physical pain, and you are certain you've been burned from exposure within the first two minutes of your journey. Cranial nerves serve as pale-pink branches on trees formed from the wet, undulating flesh forming the islands you stand upon as not to plummet into the infernal abyss below. You need to throw out these shoes. Immediately. And your sweater, and yourself, a pitter-patter of droplets from above,_ finally, r_

It's cerebrospinal fluid.

That is definitely cerebrospinal fluid.

God.

_Damnit. _

And, by the game's logic, it's flammable too, stirring a flare-up of the fires roaring near the borderline of this islet over the horizon, at which point you decide that you can afford to burn all of your clothes after this if it allows you to sit in the dubious shelter of one of these brain-trees and wait out the storm.

The terrain directly in your line of sight is vast, but you feel an incessant need to give your status updates to the group. Calm down. Stare at your phone, your eleven (_Ten? It may well be ten now_, you consider, a shiver as you banish the thought) remaining followers in this post-apocalyptic wasteland will no doubt praise your perseverance. Even as your fingers become so disgustingly slick with Actual-Fucking-Brain-Juice that you have to give up your comprehensive progress report and actually bother to take in your surroundings.

There aren't any enemies on this island. No imps, no ogres, no basilisks or other "no-thank-you's" which you stopped having a use for long ago, their resources trivial when you consider yourself to have made a rightful living quarters at long last. Finally, no cullers to tell you what to do. Just a meager living, one you miss at the moment as you idly watch the glistening "rain" wash its way over small pale rocks in this sparse savannah.

You'd thought you were walking into woodland, but consider you may have been mistaken. The thick woods behind you beg to differ, however, but you elect to ignore that little fact just as well as you ignore the treads in the ground from what you are positive must have been a battle with more than a few psionic lasers. You must admit, you still aren't entirely sure how he does that.

He's always been psionically gifted, of course, for as long as you've known him, and he's always had the audacity to complain. To be culled by the empress herself, to be of the highest rank in his class, to be lauded and loved and lucky, so, so lucky, and complain. Even his headaches could reveal incredible things, privileged facets of the near-future, while yours. Yours bought you time locked up in your block, bouncing from culler to culler as your health fluctuated, _so fragile, you_, and nobody cared to deal with you. Nobody listened to your ideas, nobody took you seriously, no matter how hard you tried to become an educated, upstanding member of society on your own. And yet, once, you tried to vet _his_ problems. "Problems," when he'd argue with you at odd hours about rock bands and the oxford comma, or putting on matching socks or not or the heat death of the universe. Problems when you'd stay up, some mornings, just to see when he'd finally run out of steam. Problems when you knew you'd helped him tire himself out and all that pent-up anxious energy released and sometimes you'd smile to yourself for a job well done from halfway across the district.

You find yourself laughing a little. Almost fond.

He'd trusted you with his insecurities, as you trusted him with yours. You thought you weren't tall enough, that your pants came up too-too high on you if you wanted the legs to fit. (He'd told you to wear them anyway;"_iiTT'll be a TThiing by nexTT 2weep, The hiigh waii2TT. iiTT'll be, liike, riighTTeous, dude, you're a TTrend2eTTer 2o long a2 you own iiTT. TThey ju2TT don'TT geTT you yeTT_." You have, truthfully, under your sweater, in spite of another dear friend telling you exactly how you dress like a travesty. You won't be controlled. Entirely.) He thought he was only ever given a second look because he has his ancestor's face. You.

You wish you would have told him _n9, Mituna, y9u're a w9nderful individual as y9u are_, but instead, you were too focused on his new co-op partner. The same girl playing some MMO with fanciful hats_ and_ discussing legal precedents on forums you'd found in your research, it was far too unlikely to seem true but once you'd made the connection it was inescapable. She'd gone inactive, disappeared_ because of him_. She gave into that anti-intellectual sniveling drivel because of him, a brilliant mind squandered, _he ruined your chances with_

The flames rise in the forest behind you, driving you into the clearing. At least, if you want to keep your ass firmly un-toasted. You do.

It's strange, anyway, his actual, tangible absence from your life. You're by no means co-dependent, but it doesn't feel quite right. Like a building on your commute's gone out of business, or perhaps like an old tree in the schoolyard has been hacked to the ground, leaving behind the stump where it once joined the ground, it's. Surreal. You find this surreal, but maintain confidence that you will, eventually, get over it. Life moves on. (_It is Doom that lingers._)

The rain abates, leaving you temporarily distracted from the direction you were initially headed in and entirely susceptible to tripping over something in this _clear_ing while you idly admire how nice and tan your retinas must be getting from looking at the sky so much.

** _C-rRck_ ** **. **

A trail of bone shards fly from your shoe, much to your temporary horror, until you realize the crucial factors that A. this skull is not that of a troll and B. it's actually partially buried in the ground, so it may well be a fossil of some kind, you suppose. In fact, it looks as though it's been picked clean by time, or some very efficient fungi. You almost feel bad for this poor ex. . . Snake? This may well have been a snake, at one point, you determine by looking under the hands that prevented you from faceplanting into cerebral cortex and discovering that what you thought were "rocks" are actually the ridges of a very, very large snake's spine. The folding pattern of the ground around them has been warped, as though stirred, deliberated over as one tries fruitlessly to push the bones of the dead into earth that refuses to hide them away. There is a stick planted at the head of the site that you hadn't initially noticed, a ruler hastily wedged into the mush. Penance, you ponder, for the other rocks washed up in this clearing. Perhaps that explains why you have failed to run into any friendly lizard civilians in this place to offer you directions. Surely, you've committed a social faux pas by wandering back-asswards into an Important Game Landmark. Yes. Obviously.

You decide this will not appear in your reports, and press on.

The planet maintains itself, just as before, equally disgusting in its crags and valleys and hills and rivers of you've-stopped-caring-keep-trudging. Really, if she hadn't seemed so upset, you question whether or not you could have brought yourself to look for him. He, by and large, had his shortcomings. Bouts of belligerence in violently vacillating mood swings, calloused comments with so little tact that it was hard to excuse his lack of social etiquette; he hardly seemed to be_ trying_. Verbally belittling himself, constantly, even in the presence of those doing quantifiably worse than him in the same categories. You know social cues didn't come easy to him, he told you as much. You still don't think that's an excuse not to correct yourself the nth time you laugh at a "fail" compilation including serious injuries.

He was as sore a winner as loser, in those days, considering himself accomplished for having posted artwork before and thereby actually knowledgeable on the subject, or at least moreso than anyone who told him that he could not, for the life of him, draw properly-proportioned arms and hands. He'd repeat the same mistakes, content to call them inevitable or very much a choice. He poured himself into his favorite games, between practices, to the point of obsession. To the point of being outwardly off-balance should he be knocked from his proud number-two (for number one, evidently, was for those unskilled enough to calculate exactly where they need to be) spot on the leaderboard. Always in twos. Two different socks, two different shoes, two different bright red-and-blue eyes, always even, lest something go amiss. "The FaTTe2 don'TT liike TTwo be mocked," he'd tell you on the subject of threes and parallelisms during your early-morning chats, though you'd never truly understood his fascination yourself. It's an old legend, in the community of psionic yellowbloods, that three incarnations of fate bestowed them with the powers of electrokinesis and prophecy, "TTwo make 2ure TThe Dyiing are wiiTTne22ed when TThey, liike, reTTurn TTwo TThe bounTTy of co2miic liifeforce and whaTTever. TThaTT 2omeone geTT2 iiTT before you go, yknow?? 2o nobody ha2 TTwo be alone."

You sigh, officially Hopelessly Lost. You take a seat atop some deep green rocks, which you are absolutely confident are actually. Bricks. And scraps of drywall, the rough texture under your fingers as they drift over this cleft piece of what was part of a block, at some point. _His_ block, from the oil pastel staining your fingers. You run like you didn't know you could before, overtaken by a sudden need to_ know_ exactly what happened here. The pastel isn't quite baked to the surface yet, and it may not be too late. You hope for _her_ sake, that it is not too late. You hope for your sake, that it is not too late. You need to tell him something before he's allowed to leave again.

Your name is KANKRI VANTAS and you, begrudgingly, have regrets.

The hive is in complete disarray once you find it. You let yourself in, considering the entrance is missing, let alone the staircase to the top of the tower the two of you had built upon entering the Medium. You remember that he didn't want this wall here, or that block there, and his load gaper is _still_ firmly defenestrated and stuck in the ground even though you know he could have put it back by now. It's much easier to look at that than the maelstrom of dirty laundry and magazine pages covered in ambiguous tv-dinner sauce in the main livingsblock, a proper mountain of crushed cans of toxic Appleberry Blast that nearly cancel out the smoke encrusting your lungs. You knew he was somewhat a slob, compared to you, but if the place weren't still standing you'd swear a tornado went through here. Old microwave trays are covered in mold. There's no telling how long this has been this way.

"Mituna…?"

There is no answer. You can't say you expected one, heading further up through the vertical labyrinth.

The floors pass you by in slow motion, blurring into a singularity as you refuse to acknowledge the little things about the remains of his hive. How it feels you've walked into a ghost town, how there's a deep ochre staining the carpet at the bottom of the stairs, how the smell of decay somehow only gets _worse_ as you ascend. Worse, and. Sweeter. Sickeningly sweet, like candied excrement, the tang of touching your tongue to an outlet emanating from a block you haven't seen in a very, very long time. 

The roof to his respiteblock is missing. Entirely. It's been blown off, debris around the room, the place soaked from the rains and exposed to the enemy and yet apparently untouched. He did not come up here often, so it seems, the block mostly barren save the diagrams and prophetic scribblings on the walls, a leather-bound book and a pile of broken glass.

You, in spite of your better judgment, take a look at the book.

It's his sketchbook. One with pictures you've seen before, of )(er Radiance and Meenah, younger and almost caricatures of a happy household. It's immediately followed by Meenah's snaggle-toothed grin, by Radiance (dubbed "Radz", in these pages, the marked messy handwriting of a younger child ) and her icy, gaslighting "disappointed" pout. Abstract works, impressions of his old biclops, experiments with colors (always the primaries; he can only trust the primaries, so notes the back of the page, upon learning he is colorblind) and drawings of the psionic roundtable he was forced to sit at. A child sits surrounded by people ten times his age because of his visions of the end of days. He's exaggerated them, made fun of them, save the ones he liked. A childhood spent drawing, trying to capture the likeness of the Archiver, connector of the stars, among other things. The portraits have odd titles. "_maybe ii can'TT iinvenTT The iinTTerneTT, bu7 ii'll be 2omeTThiing you'd be proud of_."

There are large gaps in drawing quality, from then on, from starting and stopping and meeting new people. You find he's drawn portraits of you, even, and of Latula, so many of Latula. Never flattering ones, either, in the strictest sense; he seems to have poured a lot of time and effort into a drawing you've never seen before, a sketch of her laughing over the webcam during their matches. Her nostrils flair a bit, a few hairs out of place, and yet every freckle on her face has a degree of life to it. He may have held himself to an impossible standard, but this picture you are certain would make her cringe is so thoughtfully put together that you are positive that she has never seen it.

Then you entered the game.

The sketches rapidly deteriorate into scrap paper, holding notes and lists written in a hurry. Prophecies, you gather, in a shorthand reserved for the empress's board of elite psions. A way to convey ideas quickly and efficiently in the confused daze in the wake of a vision (a way to keep anyone from effectively snooping, as you are, since the symbols appear near-incomprehensible to you). The text only becomes sloppier over time, to the point that you don't hazard to guess what it could possibly mean. You suppose he'd distilled the important parts into his reports in the groupchat.

The less important parts are written plainly, without a care for who may see. Notes like "Charon ii2 a liil biiTTch abouTT TThii2 whole que2TT junk, hone2TTly," and "noTT enough iimp2 come by TTwo ju2TTiify TThe TTrap2 anymore." Like "ii2 a popTTarTT really a raviiolii," or "by TThe TTime you 2ee TThii2, ii have noTThiing for you." Scribbled prophecies in purple, drawing your attention to the pink and violet powder of pastel on the ceiling, what must have once been a drawing. A gaze staring directly into his heart, artificial, requiring him to always blink first. Unless he could act first.

The next several pages are stuck together with a highlighter-yellow substance, the source of the sweetness in the air. If you were to peer under his desk, you'd note the glass shards fit perfectly into the shape of an empty jar.

A sprawling note on the next available page, stained by the toxic honey and pale yellow tears. You fail to stomach reading beyond the first line.

"laTTTTiie,

iim 2orry."

You skip to the end. At least, the end of what you can see. It's another portrait, one of an event you recognize, of the first anniversary of your entrance into this hellhole. Meenah baked you all a cake, as you recall. The group quickly split up and stratified, but in this sketch. In this sketch you can stand one another, huddled together around the mystery ahead, in various stages of smiling and excitement. You all were happy, then. Most of you. Most of you were just as happy as he paints.

You realize that, in all of these pictures, including this group shot, he hasn't once drawn himself.

There is the unmistakable sensation of a hand, not gentle nor rough, planted firmly on your left shoulder.

You came to this planet _alone_. 

The shadow looming over you does so by about half a foot, your immediate instinct to tack on "n9 matter what he says" identifying the corpse it belongs to long before you raise your head. You can tell it's a corpse because of the sudden intense smell of putrification in your immediate vicinity, of rot and decay, of something seared and burnt like overcooked grubloaf disposed of with lighter fluid and a careless match. Your epic quest, as shitty as it's been, is over, and your prize is presenting itself to you on a bloodstained, honey-soaked carpet. 

It could be looking at you. _He_, could be looking at you, this thing that used to be a friend of yours. He could be looking above your head, for all you know, or at the glimpse of his psyche you've stolen, claws curled into fists, venom dripping from his fangs, frozen in space and time when you finally look at him. Overgrown bangs obscure his eyes. It wouldn't matter much anyway, considering you can't tell where those hidden eyes point when they begin glowing a bright, bilious green, either. 

His bright yellow jacket (you should have known you'd never see him without it, even in death) is singed and slashed to shreds, more obviously steeped in dark ochre than the plain black shirt underneath. Torn jeans can no longer contain a leg broken at such an extreme angle, dragging behind him as nothing more than a counterbalance to the tall, spindly form. His ribs art particularly obvious now, looking as though he should snap in half at the waits with a breeze that, of course, never actually comes, on this planet. A hand (hesitantly?) reaches for your shoulder, calloused and scarred, showing off the kinds of skin-boiling horrors only concealed by the general unassuming dark neutrality of (most of, spare that damn jacket) his attire. Webbing red and blue scars, like veins, like _lightning_ travel up from his fingers to his wrist, creep up his neck, epicenter unknown but almost certainly obscured somewhere in the cesspool of a body lumbering towards him. The figure-- no. The shell of Mituna, advances, pauses, and keeps advancing. 

You are aware that he must know. Must know your guilt, your conflictions, the overpowering sense of dread sweeping in with the scent rotting flesh. The bright, bright green light flickers, flickers, and glows. You could swear you see a slight sly smile on his face.

Someone finally understands. 


	2. Anemone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You were born to live underwater. He was not. Both of you know this.
> 
> The two of you seem to be the only ones who know this.

You were made to live underwater.  
  
That's what she says to you, what she always says, sitting at the edge of the gold-plated basin. Her long hair streaks down her face in gentle waves where water brushes skin. It’s so neat, even after coming fresh out of the water, and yours has already started to frizz in uneven places and split at the ends though you've hardly dunked your head in. Perhaps if you try again it'll smooth back out; you just need to change the way you tilt your head when you come back up to the surface. She's had centuries to practice, after all, and in the four sweeps of your life you've only properly tried to _swim_ swim on your own once. Maybe twice. You could, of course. You just. Haven’t wanted to.  
  
You kick off from the bottom of the pool, sharp teeth glinting with some well-deserved self-importance as you pop up above the surface, but she doesn't move a muscle in your direction. Instead, the Empress of the Beforan Empire is clinging to your new hatchmate, who is repaying the honor by quivering before he ever touches the water.

You can’t help but stare as you paddle back to shallow waters. Something is wrong with his gills; you can’t see them when you squint, even with your special prescription goggles that you’ve been saving for a special outing like this. The kid comes crashing into your hive and won’t even let you see his fins!You'd been left with )(er Confindant, ostensibly to continue your imperial studies while she took care of Yet Another Matter of Diplomatic Importance, whatever that’s meant to mean. All it really ever_ actually _meant was that she would be leaving with a group of people so tall you could hardly see her face as you'd say goodbye, left to gawk in awe as her golden trident points the charge away and into her personal ship. You, on the other hand, would go to your block, pretend to color in pages on pages of words you don't understand, and, once you get bored of that, practice your pin trick.  
  
Your pin trick is awfully useful, when you do it right. When )(er Radiance is home, she insists on pinning your hair into a massive braid every morning. She often has to wrench the pins from the night before free of their hairspray-sealed prison. It's all too sticky, like spiderweb, and you can't stand the feeling of it on your scalp. She calls it "becoming of a young lady like yourself." You are abshoalutely positive that the only thing the strangled wreck of hair adds to anything **you** want part in is the tools it gives you to escape.

If you are very, very quiet and count the footsteps outside your door, you can launch into action at half past the hour. There is always a pin or two the cleaners miss when they enter your room, at the boundary of hardwood and your fluffy turquoise rug, just ripe for the taking. It takes about forty-two bends back and forth to snap the metal strip in half, leaving you with a piece thin enough to slide into the lock on your door. You’ve learned to listen for the pop that cracks your cell wide open.  
  
The palace is, as it has been these four sweeps you've known the pleasure of living, _yours_. You are the one to run and duck through the hallways, to sneak past the rooms where servants polish the fineries the Empress has taken to displaying all across the hive (and the one to occasionally bother one of the taller ones to help you in your heisting efforts, since the cookie jar just happens to be a head's height out of reach.) _You_ are the one to check on the plants growing steadily on the third floor balcony, maybe stealing a lush rhododendron for your hair along the way. You wave hello to the koi fish as they glide below the clear blue waters of the central fountain, and ask the cooks and the cleaners little inanities about the world outside the palace walls. _You_ ask. _They_ answer.  
  
She never does.  
  
One night, you came sliding down the banister with a running start, the papers she'd so wanted you to fill in clutched tightly in-hand, only to find that hers were already full. Someone else held your culler's hand, someone your size, your age. A boy, you'd come to learn, not that you could figure out much of anything _about him._ He hid behind long bangs and a longer jacket, no fewer than three sizes too large for his frame.  
  
"Meenah," )(er Radiance chided. "Stand up straight when you address your hatchmate, won't you? Mustn't put on a poor first impression."  
  
He said nothing to you, that first night. Instead, she dolled him up in a tacky mustard-yellow suit with a trident pointed up his neck in bold, black lines. He sat at her right hand at dinner.  
  
He still sits there now, trembling like an overgrown wriggler far from its nest, cold and alone in the world while she swaddles him in her arms. Her whole face lights up the moment he so much as dips a fingertip in the water, whispering little nothings like _good job_ and _you did it_. The headband she has him wear lets you look into those blank red and blue eyes of his, but you see no gratitude inside. You can’t see anything at all, solid, shiny eyes, like an antlerbeast before slaughter.  
  
Does he even know who she is?  
  
The second night, she pushed him toward you with a wide smile, his own a lot weaker. Feet together, a hand so much more angular than yours clutching his opposite wrist, he had no pupils but you could still feel him trying to keep from looking at you. He wouldn't even give you the dignity of a gander at your face when you said "Hi, I'm Meenah, who are you?" He just stood there, shuffling his feet a little, head down and looking at his mismatched shoes or looking back over his shoulder at the empress.  
  
You didn't get it in your head to invest in talking to him again until they put an extra cocoon in your block. It has no pretty pastel veil like yours, crammed between your bookcase and the toybox. "Just for a little while," )(er Confindant sighed as he brought you your glass of water before bed. “We didn't expect to find him so soon.”

Even as the door gently swung shut behind him, he kept his head down.

You just rolled your eyes, playing hive with your dolls. You were just getting to a very _important_ and _dramatic_ death scene, after all, and Eithel isn’t about to sacrifice herself for the good of the harvest, now is she? But you heard a sound that still hasn’t quite left your mind.

“Hey,” he said to you, in a way too boisterous to fit the meek face you’d seen the night before. “What are you doing?”

“Busy,” you sneered, walking Janine in to see her own daughter preparing to elope with the postman.

“Can I try?”

“_No_,” you snarl, dragging your doll’s hive a few feet to the left.

“Right. Sorry. They left all my toys at hive– with, biclops, so….”

“Why are you doing that?”

“Doing what?” He tilts his head a little, forked tongue poking out from between sets of fangs.

“When you make ‘s’ sounds, it sounds weird.”

“Oh,” he pauses, as though he miraculously hadn’t noticed. You wouldn’t put it past him; for someone she’d lauded as _so bright, with so much potential_ he seems duller than river stones to you.

“Yeah, _oh_.”

“Didn’t know it’d bother you so much, it doesn’t really stop–”

“Then stop talking.”

You didn’t ask him to waltz into your hive. You didn’t ask him to invade your block with a cloying smile, _play nice, kids_, closing the door without even pausing to glance at the portrait you’d drawn for her. You refuse to include a yellow smudge in the corner, especially one that’s done nothing but bother you.

So he did. He stayed on the respite slab, laying on his side, staring at the details of your wall. A half-baked height chart )(er Confindant sketches in pencil every few perigees, little pockmarks from you idly scraping at the pastel-purple paint to expose the gray of concrete beneath with your lockpicks; he traced his fingers over the dents from frustrated tantrums leading behind your bookcase.

You shrugged into the frills of your designated play-dress. Even then, you knew he already understood you more than your own mother.

“Why are you here?”

“I thought I wasn’t s’posedta talk,” he deadpanned.

“Why were they looking for you. Do you even know?”

“I asked the same thing,” he sighed, rolling onto his back. He, unlike most people, sits up from what he was doing to talk to you, even if you’re pretty sure he still wasn’t looking at you. “They wouldn’t tell me. I did see that Miss Peixes–”

“_)(er Radiance_,” you mocked, rolling your eyes.

“She’s not very rad,” he smiled. “Not like in the magazines, I bet she’d never _lower herself_ to play games or nothin’ cool.”

“But she always has to be the best at. Everything.”

“Yeah, so I saw _Radz,_”

You, in a moment of weakness, forgot yourself. You let him hear you laugh.

“She was looking through this book? It had pictures of her and Mr. Ampora, and. _Someone else_.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
He doesn’t seem as jovial.

“He said you wouldn’t be in here long,” you offer, setting down Eileen and her little suitcases.

You both knew that didn’t mean what you wanted it to, nor were you ready to handle what it did.

If he’s going to be your brother, he should at least have the gall to talk to )(er Radiance, _Radz_, the way he did you. He can’t just suddenly pretend to be helpless. Quiet. To be _pathetic_. You can’t stand by and let him. If he’s going to be your brother, he will sink or he will swim, and either way he needs to learn that this hive is _yours_.

“Hey,” you glance up at him, now sitting on the edge of the pool. )(er Radiance has left the two of you under the watchful eye of )(er Confindant, who has in turn assigned you to the poolkeep while he addresses something that’s supposed to be more important than )(er pets. He kicks his feet in the water, splashing in your general direction. “Hey, ‘tuna.”

“Hmm?” he looks up, as though you’d managed to distract that vacant head of his from a thought.

“Come on, you don’t need her babying you. Come swim with me, we can race!”

He makes a face, shaking his head. “Meenah, I don’t think I should–”

“You’re not a cluckbeast, are you? I thought you wanted to be _raaaad_,” you snicker, bobbing your head underwater.

He’s practically fuming, and it’s _hilarious_. There’s a slight spark that leaps between his eyes before he, gently, lowers himself to stand in the water.

If you’re having second thoughts, it’s too late.

“C’mon!” you cry from halfway across the pool, streamlining your way to deeper waters. “Don’t be a wuss!”

He takes a breath, trudging forward.

You knew he would. Maybe you’ll meet him halfway.

He reaches for your shoulder, even though the water is barely up to your chest. His hands are shaking, but Radz is nowhere to be seen. 

Perfect.

“Hey, ‘tuna? I gotta show you something.”

He looks at you with wide eyes, an innocent nod. You don’t regret it a bit when you gently push down on his back, then dunk him under completely.

You regret it when you can feel an electrical shock climb up your spine instead. The second his drowned screams hit your ears.

You were made to live underwater. You both have to live with the distinct knowledge that _he wasn’t_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rhododendron- represents elegance, wealth, danger, the need for caution, temptation. The leaves are known to be toxic; honey made from rhododendron nectar contains grayanotoxins, which overstimulate the central nervous system and are known to lead to illness in humans.
> 
> Sounds like another certain honey...
> 
> Sea anemones are actually predatory animals, and will sting most crabs, un-shelled mollusks, and small fish that come within range of its arms; a notable exception is the clownfish, which forms a symbiotic partnership with the anemone and may use it for protection.
> 
> Mituna, as he is now quite well aware, is not actually a fish of any kind.
> 
> [A link to the cover art!](https://calculatingminutiae.tumblr.com/post/618305175949623296/family-portrait-chapter-2-anemone-you-were-born)


	3. Reverie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Today is another lazy Saturday, and another one where you should have been asleep hours ago. Then again, so should your co-op partner, so can Pyralspite really blame you?

It doesn't take a day with wonderful weather to be a great one. The sun need not shine high above the heavens and down upon your humble abode, which is currently decked out with as much teal paint and as many bright-red decals as Pyralspite could stand the smell of. There doesn't _ need _ to be a light breeze majestically blowing just enough flower petals from the surrounding forest in through your block's window blinds to lightly dust the frame of your face, the frame of your glasses, stick to your lenses until you have to wipe off a bit of the majesty of nature to preserve your kill streak.

No. The weather didn't have to do this to propel you a little past cloud nine and into the upper radosphere, today, but it went ahead and did. You almost want to tell Mother Nature to cool her jets a bit. It's only you here, after all.

Well.

You and the dashing young sniper on the other end of your Ethernet cable. Which is strange, if only because you both should have been asleep about two hours ago, but you're committed to the bit. Breezy, lazy Saturdays like this don't come easily anymore. They especially don't allow you to meet up with your favorite co-op partner, now that both of you are officially marked 'taken' by Lady Grades. Or at the very least never 'tardy'. It's a point of pride that _ you're never tardy to the party, 'cuz ten tardies land you in detention, and if Pyralspite has taught you anything it's that disappointments to their historical lineages are anything but rad _.

School has once again reared its ugly head. You wouldn't really have a problem with it, if it weren't exactly like in your dayterrors. The closest building to you is a fifteen-minute commute by dragon, half an hour coming back by Tubular Rollerplank, and an absolute drag. Most of the friends-slash-peers you'd grown up with have found other institutions tailored to their aspirations, but, lucky for you, you've always wanted to concentrate in law. Preparing for a career in it is nothing short of a dream.

The uniforms are, though. As is the uniform-ity, expectations being to stand up straight and take your craft seriously as death, because someday you will be a Professional With Prestige and Money (even though you could not care less about Prestige and Money.) You simply see so many things in this world that could use a little less bragging and bribery and a little more rational thought. Someone has to take the initiative to see each side, consider both ways, and to stand by what deserves to be stood by until the bitter, fang-gritting, tumultuous-sand-of-time-grinding ardently-acrid end. Too many people are wrongfully charged with crimes they’d never seen, let alone committed. Too many trolls find themselves at the end of a compliance recommendation pole, heavy sparks and all, with no recourse. Too many injustices go unpunished, too many innocents absorb the shock. If nobody is going to stand up to it, then damn it, you’ll have to do it yourself!

Some day.

Some day, and hopefully one sooner than later, but for today you’ll have to settle for reading as much as you can. Learning as much as you can, about others and yourself, because, if you’re honest, you. You can’t even sit up in class, all the way, slumped over your textbook and praying silently to yourself that the teacher simply forgets you exist. It isn’t that you’re embarrassed, per se, so much as you’re petrified by the chance of embarrassment later. It’s a barkbeast’s feast out there, one after another, one student’s slip down the ladder is an opportunity for another to use their cranium as a stepping stone to valedictorian.

The thing that really gets you, though, is that the moment you misspeak, or you say something stupid, you won’t be _ just _ an idiot. You’ll be an idiot _ girl _ , and twice as prone to people talking behind your back about how messy your hair is or how you should coast by on your cup size, making up nasty rumors about some vague horrific, dirty, filthy, degenerate escapades the encroaching tightness in your chest would never let you go on, ruining not only any career you may come to find yourself in but _ your worth itself _. They’ll ruin your life for a laugh. They’re laughing at you. They already laugh at you, call you standoffish, call you plain and prude and a doormat, but at least in your silence it can only be said that you did what you were told. You do what you are supposed to do, and you are in the right. You need to stay in the right. Please, God, stay in the right.

It’s exhausting.

You don’t know how he does it. Your sniper, he speaks to his own schooling like it’s nothing, like he just... _ knows everybody _ and they all love him. You can see why.

He’s charismatic, as far as you’re concerned, with a scraggle-fanged smile to match. He’s the one who convinced you that you didn’t need to be a natural to board. “Sometimes,” he began, a pupil-less stare filling his webcam, captivating red and blue lit by his monitor “You just do a thing because you like it. Like, that’s enough, you know?”

He’s stayed up with you more days than you can count, like this, listening to you talk about what’s gone on in your neck of the very literal woods. It’s only recently that you’ve gotten him to open up much at all about the “training” he mentions every so often, and all you’re certain of is that it’s wearing him out. He keeps smiling for you, and you feel like you should be smiling back, but the bags under his eyes match your own. You’re almost afraid to intrude too much; God knows you don’t have any advice for him on the matter. If you did, maybe you wouldn’t have to hide behind your “broken” camera to keep from shattering the illusion you might be someone who knows what she’s talking about. You can’t very well show him what you really are.

“I dunno,” he sighs over voice chat. “It’s just busy. Helmscorp is always busy this time of year. Gotta stress test the n00bs and re-test the vets, get everyone straight-scored for this semester’s ranking. If you can’t handle the long hours in school, how are you supposed to in a plant, yadda et cetera. It’s all grade-B BS and everybody knows it. They don’t even test you at the sort of levels you’ll need to last half a _ second _ in a real rig, it’s just. Gross.”

You want to say something. Something like, “They must have really gotten to you tonight, didn’t they?” Though, then again, is that too much? Too presumptive? Is it even your place to ask? You should just be grateful he’s willing to tell you, even though you’ve scraped together that “plant” refers to a power plant, no thanks to him, and that it’s the only kind of employment he’s ever considered. Maybe all he’s been offered? You’re five sweeps old, isn’t it a little early to be pigeonholed into a psychically-intensive career like that?

You’re interrupted by the spray of cartoonish multicolor across your screen. Such is life, when he lays in wait and finally collects the prize.

“That probably didn’t make much sense, it’s just. It’s all numbers. Numbers they pull out of their asses to tell you you’re stupid.”

“You’re not stupid,” you pipe up. You’ve never had to worry about speaking to him, or in front of him, or any of it. That still doesn’t mean that you know how to do it to your own satisfaction.

“Yeah, only ‘cuz my numbers are still good. I got lucky my circuit’s overactive as it is, only thing keeping me from a ‘remedial plant’ for ‘my own good’, I’d swear. If they didn’t have an eye on me for Council I’d’ve been ousted ages ago.”

“Mm. Doubt it. Nope, not allowed. You’re just Too Cool, MT. The Coolest, maybe. Section 43.1, article 2, One Shalt Not Apprehend The Coolest, says it right there.”

“Oh, so you’re good then?”

You’re glad he can’t see you lay your head on your desk. It’s bad enough he can hear you snort when you laugh.

“Good. I worry about you sometimes, Latte.”

“Pff,” you start, picking your head up just in time for an elaborate button combo. It’s what you get for not paying attention, you guess. “No need, no need. I’m, like, not even close to The Coolest but eh, I get by. No regrets, right?”

“Right.”

You help to cover him once he has to move positions, swinging your artillery every-which-way. You prefer to come close and bruise all at once instead of using yourself as an elaborate, situational trap. Then again, you also get hurt a lot more that way.

“Still,” you shrug, scouting for new targets. “It’s pretty raw that they run you ragged that way. You ought to chill out over here some day, kick back.”

You pretend not to notice the long silence, blustering wind in through his patchwork curtains showing a few intermittent rays of sunlight. He isn’t even pretending to look at the camera.

“Nah. I’m good. It’s, like, not even hard? Just….”

He doesn’t find the words to explain what kind of ‘just…’ it is. Both of you notice. Neither bring it up.

“Yeah, I get’cha. Doesn’t change anything, though.”

He hesitates again, the pale blue of his screen reflecting from the pilot’s goggles keeping his hair out of his face. If you didn’t know better, you could swear his cheeks were a bit too shiny, slick with tears recently shed.

“Might take you up on that.”

* * *

It takes him precisely forty-five minutes to arrive at your hive.

You know this not only because you’ve been counting the seconds in nervous anticipation, sending him DMs every few minutes and watching the timestamps steadily creep across the clock face, but because it took you about twenty of them to realize he doesn’t formally know where your hive is.

The two of you have spoken extensively about meeting up somewhere sometime, face-to-face proper, giving him more than an occasional glimpse of you when you’re feeling confident enough to have “fixed” those crossed camera wires and letting you finally figure out just what the height disparity between the two of you looks like. It’s a strange point to fixate on, but, then again, the two of you have strange conversations.

You remember, clear as the skies at moonrise, you were in the middle of making something resembling a hastily-mixed mac-and-cheese dinner when he got back from school (being, wherever he is, two hours behind your time.) Naturally, the two of you started texting almost immediately.

“… and like, she’s maybe two inches taller than me right now. Two! At least part-ways because her horns go straight up instead of curving like mine do, and like, suddenly it makes her a total hotshot? Newsflash, asshole, you’re not even allowed to be taller than me.”

“Oh man, how are you gonna stop her >B?”

“I mean, I’m not. Obvz. But I can stay the taller one metaphorically. ‘Cuz like, the taller you are the more you get looked up at and listened to, so even if she wants to play the physiologically-inevitable card all that matters is I’ve really got the high ground if she ever goes there.”

“Pff, I doubt it! It’s not even that big a difference? Nothing gloat-worthy, for sure! >B0 You’ve totally got the highground. Plus, if you have the high ground, it doesn’t even matter how tall she is since your head’s further from the relative ground. Checkmate, poserz.”

“… Huh. I ever tell you I love it when you’re absolutely right?”

“Lmao.” You did not, in fact, laugh, shoving a forkful of pasta covered in unmixed cheese powder into your face while watching the three dots at the bottom of your phone screen with rapt anticipation.

“See, the thing is, I’ve mostly got the high ground with her. Like, she’s my hatchmate. She isn’t allowed to be taller than me, no matter what the tape measure says.”

“You have people who are?”

“Oh, yeah. Not a lot, though. It’s a real exclusive list, like, the bouncer works on some real mystic BS concoction of a calculation for patronage to The List, you've gotta be all pure of heart and junk AND survive the math."

"Not the math! >BO"

"Ooooh _ yes _ the math. Absolutely. Every time."

"Dang. And to think here I'm sorta junk at math >B/"

"Eh, I wouldn't think on it too much. You're already number one." 

You remember that night ended in some mutual tutoring, or at the very least you described to him what a statute of limitation is and he _ tried _ to explain calculus to you but he lost you at Soh-Cah-Toa. 

Part of you wonders what tonight will bring. He must have been having a hard time to run out in the blinding light of the Beforan sun. Your skin might not blister from its heat, but unchecked it can still leave nasty burns and insidious scars. You hope he had the presence of mind to at least wear a suncloak. 

But it takes forty-five minutes for him to reach your hive; to touch down on the ground in front of your resident tree; to stare upward, puzzled by the state of the edifice for all of two moments before noticing your attempts to spray Real Graffiti on the neatest cursive letters you could manage and discern that this is, indeed, the right place. 

He stands at the base of your treehive with tired eyes like the opaque marbles in a fawn's skull the moment before it's carried off by a terrifying bird of prey. Something in the way he sways gently on his feet is endearing, staring up at you in your ivory tower, though you have no rope to give. The way he's forgone sun safety to wear that gaudy yellow jacket of his, emblazoned with his own symbol, only pulling it up over his shoulders and part-way over his head to shield his vision while (ostensibly) levitating. The way he isn't afraid to show you, specifically that the t-shirt he wears beneath it is an unadorned black. 

There's something dreamy in the way he looks at you. Stares at you, this mysterious sort of blankness to his expression, the way his hair escapes the band of his goggles to frame his face, the slow panning angle of his chin like he knows you're studying its curve, the way he raises one hand up to you, _ god you want to hold his hand someday, _ and he sinks to his knees, and then to

Oh.

Oh, he's fainted. That's what that is.

Holy shit, _ your flushcrush fainted in front of your hive! _

You scurry down to get him before Pyralspite has a chance to. 

* * *

The next twenty minutes are particularly nerve-wracking, because it is the middle of the day and your best friend (best friend. You didn’t say flushcrush, did you? Hahaha, _ no, _ you are a businesswoman! You can’t possibly have time for both _ a successful career AND budding romance! _ Not according to The University of Watching Television, at least. Are you even his best friend? Shit, shit, you _ haven’t ever asked, _ ) is unconscious in front of your couch. You’ve tried to drag him _ onto _ the couch in question, but he is too gangly and awkward with bones that go at odd angles and really it was trouble enough getting him up the stairs without Pyralspite noticing. All you can really do is sit cross-legged beside him, watching TV, really starting to _ feel _the fact that it can’t actually be good for you to stay up until mid-morning. 

As much as you love Pyralspite, she is, in fact, a pain in the thorax. She’s old and learned and wise, of course, ancient beyond the very cities and civilizations that have sprung up surrounding this mystical grove, as elderly as the tree you call home. Considering she is a flying reptile the size of a bus, she is also exceptionally kind to you as her assigned wriggler. Once you came of age to consider such things, it struck you odd that such a powerful being would reveal herself for long enough to be given a child, let alone one that could fit in her eye socket and cannot, in spite of your better efforts, breathe fire. To take on what you’re positive must be a liability to the territory, your _ home _, is something special. She is so old, and she is so sweet, to you. Teaching you selections of her vast knowledge, telepathically giving you advice, letting you ride on her back as she flies; she has a soft spot for you. 

Everybody else is fair game.

When Mituna wakes up, it catches you off guard.

Well, the first thing to catch you off guard is that you are suddenly laying on your couch, staring blankly at the ceiling while you take in the muffled sound of screaming. One look out your window tells story enough for you to slide down the guard rail [sick] beside your stairs and fly out the door. Sure enough, you find Mituna there to meet you, save that he happens to be hanging upside-down from a branch and looking nearly eye-level at a sneering dragon perched on the ground below. 

Ah, so she’s found a new toy.

“Hey! Pyral, leave’im be! I asked him to come over!”

You hear her reply ring in your ears. Mituna however, does not, and clings to that branch for dear life while you stare at your mother for a few moments. Moments which end with ‘_ no boys in the house’. _

“But Pyral—”

‘_ No.’ _

“But how are we supposed to play—”

‘_ Latula.’ _

“Fine….”

You look toward the tree, gearing yourself to hop half its height and climb it, only to find that Mituna has already fallen onto his back and is muttering… something or other. You can’t quite make out any words. You do, however, offer him a hand, which. Hang on, what are you _ doing _ , you can’t just _ advance to hand-holding like that, it's entirely too forward but he takes your hand too, and the two of you sit-slash-stand that way for a heartbeat or two. He looks at you with this light in his eyes, a literal spark, one he notices and seems so quick to scrub away like he’s afraid you’ve noticed. It’s nothing short of adorable, you should tell him, but oh, should you though? _

You blink, starry-eyed, and realize he’s actually trying to communicate now. 

“Your dragon tried to eat me,” he stresses. “Like, holy shit?”

“Not very hard,” you shrug, pulling his ragdoll-weight along to lift him to his feet. “If she really wanted you out of the picture, you’d have been gone before you knew she was there, now what exactly are you doing out here?”

“You were asleep, a-and like. I wasn’t? And I didn’t want to make it like, _ weird? _ ” He keeps his head down, dusting off the knees of gray-dyed jeans. “And I couldn’t ask you how to make it not-weird. ‘Cuz you were asleep, and I thought, shit, should I put you in your respiteblock? Is it like Foreboden to go into a girl’s respiteblock without her inviting you there? Does it count if technically I’m carrying you I mean I’d ask your lusus but she’s a _ fucking! Dragon! _” he gestures with both hands, as though directing stray air traffic.

You just laugh, back of one hand covering your mouth before you really notice it’s there.

“Well, next time just go back to sleep, _ doofus. _ Made me worry about you!” you push his shoulder half-heartedly, though he stares at you with wide eyes.

“Next time?”

“Well. Not if Pyral has anything to say about it,” you do your best to wink. 

Wink. 

Come onnnnn, _ wink. _

Ugh. 

To cover one eye with your hand, and flash him a perfectly-imperfect sharp-toothed smile. “She _ sorta _ put a lil’ teensy ban on having friends over. Friends who are boys. Boy friends.

“Oh,” he takes a step back, scratching at the back of his neck. “Y-Yeah, I, I should have figured I’m sor—”

“Hey,” you interject before he can backpedal _ too _ hard.”You’re still here right now. And as far as I know, we’re not _ actually _ in the hive, so I don’t see how it’s anything but perfectly allowed.”

He beams at you, and you melt a little inside. Then again, he thinks about it a moment more and comes to a conclusion you had long ago: “I think I’m kind of. _ Not good, _ at being outside, though.”

“That’s fine. It’s my turn to show you things, now.”

-

The Sunday evening air hangs heavy over your heads, settled down by the side of a pond in the middle of the woods. Pyralspite has come to supervise, of course, but keeps her distance to a mere ‘very conspicuously on the opposite shore, reminding Mituna that her daughter is not the only one with formidable fangs’, currently manifesting as ‘dozing in the light of moonhigh’. You pick up a handful of pebbles and bring them back to the picnic blanket you’ve spread in the lush grass just before the waterline.

“You want to pick a stone you can spin while you throw it. That’s how you get them to go really far, see?” You demonstrate your tried-and-true flat-footed throw, sending a dull gray pebble across the pond with skips so close they look to be a single jetstream. Satisfying.

You aren’t entirely sure he saw it launch, though, sifting through your pile of sparkling metamorphic rocks and limestone sediments from a far-off river; light gray stones with small, worn holes sit beside tumbled sea glass, honeycomb favosite and bits of a dark green mineral. He seems enamored with the latter, holding a particular stone, turning it over and over in his hand. 

“Aren’t you gonna throw it?”

If he can hear you, he isn’t showing it. Then again, the poor guy _ did _ collapse yesterday, and who knows how much sleep he’s actually gotten since. Though, it startles you a bit when he speaks up and says:

“Do you think we’ll have days like this? I mean, not just now, but when we’re old and boring and long after we do whatever destinies they’ve lain out for us, do you think adults ever just have. Good days. Or are we meant to get all of them out while we can.”

You think for a moment.

“Well. I don’t see why we can’t just. Make them? I mean, who’s gonna stop us? We might even have more.”

He looks at you like there’s a lingering thought behind tired eyes, something left unsaid, but he can’t wrap his head around the words. 

You see him with his fist slung behind his head, about to hurl the green stone in a singular arc that could concuss a fish, only to hesitate. He looks at it again. 

Instead, the stone goes in his pocket. He picks up a plain gray stone, like dozens around it, instead. 

“To better days,” he smiles, though it feels hollowed out, too resonant in his chest to truly be his voice. You, after an agonizing second of second-guessing, place your open palm over his hand, and lower it to the blanket you are both now sitting on. 

He leans his head on your shoulder.

“To better days.”

* * *

The next time you see him, it’s over his webcam, and he’s smiling again. You try to smile too, but you can’t help staring at the metal sheets bolted over his windows. He seems to notice.

Neither brings it up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I think I'm finally done with this one, and it only took... a little over two weeks longer than expected (ie, it has been 'almost done' for entirely too long). I am also disappointed with myself, btw, but Life has decided to occur and some health things sorted out within the last month, and hey, that. Kind of counts? A little? It's mostly a case of creative/cognitive/et cetera burnout, I think, but I am going to finish this thing if it is the last thing I do. Homestuck-related, anyway. Ideally I will continue to do many things on this mortal plane, but that's another story. 
> 
> Part of me has always been mildly amused by the idea of Mituna being (originally, anyway, pre-culling) from Space Cleveland so I threw in [a few lake rocks for flavor. ](https://www.fieldmuseum.org/blog/beachgoers-guide-lake-michigan-fossils-and-rocks)Particularly, even though I haven't been lucky enough to see any in person, the honeycomb coral. I'm mostly just delighted that's a thing. 
> 
> The pattern is probably evident now that we have twelve trolls and thirteen chapters, enough for a POV each and an epilogue. Some of the chapters are very set in order, and others are a bit in flux at the moment so if there's an alpha troll you'd like to see next: no promises, but feel free to sing out. I'm hoping to ramp up the momentum as we get into characters Mituna doesn't know quite as well, as their anthology-worthy interactions string together into a coherent narrative more than these past two largely background chapters have, but I hope you enjoy them all nonetheless.
> 
> [A link to the coverart!](https://calculatingminutiae.tumblr.com/post/622503316970143744/a-good-day-chapter-3-reverie-today-is-another)


End file.
